Mad Dogs and Englishmen go out in the mid-day sun

We left home today at 12.20 to walk to Gümüşlük village and marina. Rather than take the main road, we took the old dirt road, hoping that it would lead us into Gümüşlük village. Within 10 minutes a car pulled up alongside us, and a kind man offered us a lift.

Obviously he hasn’t heard that “Mad dogs and Englishmen come out in the mid-day sun”! It was hot and we must have looked crazy walking in the heat. We told him thank you, but no thank you, we wanted to walk (stupid English!).

The walk was pleasant and the road we took brought us directly into the heart of old Gümüşlük village 40 minutes later. We spotted a tiny street café that had caught our eye when we drove through Gümüşlük on our first day in Turkey and decided to stop off for a bite to eat. Turkish bread stuffed with Kofte and salad and a cup of chai.

The waiter/owner was a very sweet man, smiling and gracious. We enjoyed the kofte and asked how much we owed him, 5 fingers for the kofte and 1 finger for the bread….so that totals 12 lira for us both. Chai is free. I gave him 12 lira and he said no, no, no…and gave me back 2 lira. Confused, I insisted that he take the full 12 lira to which he asked the customers on the next table to explain to us that the bill was 10 lira, not 12.

Opposite the café was a stall where they were preparing deep fried balls of flour that were immediately immersed in hot sugar syrup. These were handed out to people coming out of the mosque after prayers. They gave us one to try too!

We got chatting to the people on the other table, he a Turk, she French, both on their second marriages. She had been married to a Frenchman in Toulouse, he had been married to a Pakistani. This chap had long hair, tied in a ponytail, he had a badly cut, bruised and swollen lip, several cuts on his face and a huge white bandage over his right eye. He used to play rugby internationally for Turkey and had lived for a while in Cardiff, UK.

I couldn’t help but ask him what happened and if his eye was okay. Apparently he had been riding his moped, not going fast at all when the moped slipped and he went over and into a wall. Poor chap, but fortunately his eye is okay and he will recover. The couple started a business in July last year looking after properties for expats who live in the Bodrum area. We took their business cards and flyers and said that we would give them to people we meet. We enjoyed a long conversation over our second cup of free chai and then went off to find Gümüşlük post office.

I have read a few blogs about the problems of exchanging money in Gümüşlük. It is not difficult, just go to the Post Office which is 50 metres from the minaret and they will exchange your money. Ahead of us in the queue was a very old man who would not stop talking to the man behind the counter. Just as we thought he had finished, off he’d go again. The man behind the counter was obviously trying to move him along without being rude…we were in no hurry so just waited until he ran out of air!

Walking up a slight hill we came across a shop that looked very interesting. It was an arty sort of shop, selling all sorts of hand made things like shoes, vests and hand made jewellery. Fabulous shop with stunning design with a mix of fabric, leather and metal work, a lot of it is created in an adjacent tiny room which serves as a workshop. They have been in business for 2 years. If you drive by, you’d miss it – you see so much more when you walk to places.

Around the next corner was the centre of Gümüşlük that was more familiar to us as the Dolmus stop there. This is the start of the touristy part of Gümüşlük, leading to the pretty harbour, waterside restaurants and several tiny shops selling hand made gifts and jewellery. Before venturing down to the harbour we stopped off at the only car hire place in Gümüşlük, owned by a young Turk, Adam, who is a darling.

We had met him on a previous trip to Gümüşlük so now we were friends. He insisted that we join him for a coffee and we spent the next half hour talking about anything and everything, from Turkey, the people, the customs to the Eurovision Song Contest on Saturday (he too watches it like Tony!). We said that we wanted to hire a car but also wanted to hire a moped as it would be fun to go around the peninsular on it rather than in a car and we would call him in the next day or so to hire one.

As we were leaving he told us that we had to go back another day for coffee as he loved talking to us. We then walked around as tourists do, snapping photos, taking videos and explaining to the restaurant owners that we had just eaten and were very full indeed.

Adam came down to us to ask us if it was okay with us if he hired out the moped as he had a costomer who wanted it for a couple of days. Very sweet of him to come looking for us to make sure that we didn’t mind him hiring it out on those days!

As if we hadn’t walked enough, we decided to walk around the bay to the opposite side and get closer look at the island where they had recently excavated to find some ancient Roman ruins. Beautiful clear water, the sun beating down on us, attempting to capture on film as much of the beauty and atmosphere as possible. It was time to make our way back home now.

To get to the Dolmus we would have to walk back to the harbour. There was a small dirt road which looked like it may take us to the main road and we took it rather than go back to the Dolmus station. (Dolmus is a small hop-on, hop-off bus) The road was deserted and looked very old. The walls on either side of the road were constructed using various sizes of stones piled on top of each other and amazingly, some of these stones/rocks were white marble!

We saw similar huge boulders of marble among the rocks on the shores used as a breakwater on the pier, the marble boulders were given the same status as the huge rocks – quite amazing! I think we accidentally stumbled across a very ancient road. Half way along we saw something that looked like old ruins and decided to take a closer look. As we walked through the bushes we came across some incredible ruins, one of which had part of a dome shaped roof.

There is no information about these ruins but they must be very, very old and we were excited to have stumbled upon them. You cannot see them from the main road – they are a hidden treasure.

We eventually got back home after 5 and a half hours.

I think we can say that we’ve had our exercise for the week – tomorrow we laze by the pool.

 

Read House-sitter Chronicles #1:  Missing in Transit

Read House-sitter Chronicles #2: Trip to Ephesus

Read House Sitter Chronicles #3:  Dining with the Locals